Analytics

I thought we could use a place to discuss analytics. Some are more interested in this topic than others, so I figured we could use a space to talk about analytics and the advanced stats movement. 


I was just looking at the Off-Season Game Plan and a thought about SPSV% struck me. For a defenseman, this stat is less useful IMO for determining luck. Since the quality of a defender and his play around the net has a direct impact on his on-ice SV%, I find this stat a little less valuable for determining luck. 

Any thoughts?

 

spader wrote:
I was just looking at the Off-Season Game Plan and a thought about SPSV% struck me. For a defenseman, this stat is less useful IMO for determining luck. Since the quality of a defender and his play around the net has a direct impact on his on-ice SV%, I find this stat a little less valuable for determining luck. 

Any thoughts?

With a large enough sample size(ie. a full season) a player's PDO should be around 1000. Anything significantly higher or lower than that would signify that the player is really lucky or unlucky.

Say Karlsson is tracking a very low SPSV% next season, much lower than usual. Chances are he has real bad luck, and the puck just seems to go in when he's on the ice.

Of course you'd have to dig deeper, is he playing with a bad defense partner, is the goalie behind him some ECHL player etc.

All else being equal it'd be bad luck, and if that was a trend for the first 40 games, it should improve for the last 42.

Hoags wrote:

spader wrote:
I was just looking at the Off-Season Game Plan and a thought about SPSV% struck me. For a defenseman, this stat is less useful IMO for determining luck. Since the quality of a defender and his play around the net has a direct impact on his on-ice SV%, I find this stat a little less valuable for determining luck. 

Any thoughts?

With a large enough sample size(ie. a full season) a player's PDO should be around 1000.  Anything significantly higher or lower than that would signify that the player is really lucky or unlucky.

Say Karlsson is tracking a very low SPSV% next season, much lower than usual.  Chances are he has real bad luck, and the puck just seems to go in when he's on the ice.

Of course you'd have to dig deeper, is he playing with a bad defense partner, is the goalie behind him some ECHL player etc.

All else being equal it'd be bad luck, and if that was a trend for the first 40 games, it should improve for the last 42.

I understand what the stat is used for. I'm just suggesting that a D's on-ice save % might be more of an indication of his defensive ability than of luck.

Flo The Action wrote: 

I know; I know.

It is an indicator of skill to some extent but there's other factors like luck and the goalie involved.

Every player in the league averages to about 92.5%.

If you have a defenseman who's something like 99.9% it doesn't mean he's the greatest. It means he is really lucky and he won't be able to sustain that over the course of a full season.

Look at Craig Anderson. He's posted some unreal save percentages but over the course of a full season his numbers are average.